The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

By Agatha Christie

Dramatised by Michael Bakewell

When Hercule Poirot retires to the country to grow vegetable marrows, he finds that someone has planted the seeds of treachery and murder.

Hercule Poirot .… John Moffatt
Dr Sheppard …. John Woodvine
Roger Ackroyd …. Laurence Payne
Raymond …. Peter Gilmore
Parker the Butler …. Deryck Guyler
Caroline …. Diana Olsson
Miss Russell …. Eva Stuart
Ralph Paton …. Paul Sirr
Flora …. Zelah Clarke
Mrs Ackroyd …. Joan Matheson
Kent …. Peter Craze
Blunt …. David Goodland
Inspector Raglan …. Richard Tate
Inspector Davis …. Simon Cuff
Ursula …. Karen Archer
Eammond …. Alan Dudley

Director: Enyd Williams

First broadcast: 

Thu 24th Dec 1987

19:45 on BBC Radio 4 FM

Considered to be one of Agatha Christie's most controversial mysteries, The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd breaks the rules of traditional mystery.

Known for its startling reveal, this is the book that changed Agatha Christie’s career.

Roger Ackroyd was a man who knew too much. He knew the woman he loved had poisoned her first husband. He knew someone was blackmailing her – and now he knew she had taken her own life with a drug overdose. Soon the evening post would let him know who the mystery blackmailer was. But Ackroyd was dead before he’d finished reading it – stabbed through the neck where he sat in the study.

The story formed the basis of the earliest adaptation of Christie’s work. English dramatist Michael Morton adapted the book into a play, Alibi, which opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London in 1928 and successfully ran for 250 performances.

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